The World's Longest Rail Tunnel Has Just Opened In The Weirdest Way

This will haunt your dreams, but you will also kind of love it.

Artists perform during a show on the opening day of the Gotthard rail tunnel at the fairground Rynaecht at the northern portal in Erstfeld, Switzerland, on June 1, 2016.
The new Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is set to become the world's longest railway tunnel when it opens on June 1.The 57-kilometre (35.4-mile) tunnel, which runs under the Alps, was first conceived in sketch-form in 1947 but construction began 17 years ago.
/ AFP / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

After 17 years of construction and 28.2 million tons of excavated material, the world’s longest and deepest rail tunnel has opened in Switzerland. And the ceremony featuring alphorn players, topless "angels" and goats, could not have been more bizarre.

Masked acrobats and interpretive dancers dressed like miners ushered in the Gotthard Base Tunnel’s opening near the town of Erstfeld Wednesday.

“It is just part of the Swiss identity,” federal transport office director Peter Fueglistaler told Reuters of the Swiss fondness for major engineering feats. “For us, conquering the Alps is like the Dutch exploring the oceans.”

Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
About 28.2 million tons of material were removed during the tunnel's 17 years of construction. The northern gates near the town of Erstfeld are seen.

Among its most impressive tools used to complete the dig was a monster-sized tunnel boring machine measuring 448-yards in length, or a little less than four football fields placed end-to-end.

"A large proportion of the excavated rock was returned to the mountain's interior in the form of concrete,” according to the tunnel’s website. “The remaining material was used for landscaping of the site or as fill for fans."

Among its deepest points was roughly 1.2 miles beneath the Earth's surface.

FABRICE COFFRINI via Getty Images
A shirtless performer wearing large wings is seen during Wednesday's opening ceremony for the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel.

Among the performances was a topless dancer wearing giant wings who soared over orange-suited dancers as they crawled on the ground below.

At another point, humans dressed like bales of hay were seen swaying on a flatbed before running around on the floor.

FABRICE COFFRINI via Getty Images
The performance included everything from this eagleman to what appeared to be dancing bales of hay.

Some of the scarier parts of the performance reportedly captured the area’s “mountain demons” -- which can be the storms, unidentified shapes and sounds, and falling objects, according to the tunnel’s website.

The whole spectacle left many people on Twitter both amused and confused.